The Tenth Round Interview
I thought I might get to speak with someone from the organizers—maybe a mid-level manager or handler. Instead, the figure sitting across from me in the interview room was the Angel.
Goddamn it. The Angel again? After clawing my way this far, I still have to talk to this angel? She's literally the only person I've spoken to besides three others.
“Assigning a brand-new organizer to each of over a million players would be far less efficient than simply granting broader authority to us angels as their proxies. That’s why we handle these conversations.”
“I get that, but still…”
“Now that certain previously hidden details have been unlocked, you can speak freely. We also have many questions for players who’ve reached this stage of the rounds. So please, relax and answer at your own pace.”
Is that so… Then I might as well start with this.
“Why is the whole thing structured as a tournament? Obviously I understand you can’t run a league with a billion people. But in a single-elimination format, the role of luck becomes way too big, doesn’t it? A player who could’ve taken second place might get matched against a top contender right away.”
“Hehe… If I rephrase your question, are you really asking whether we’re running an uncountable number of games simultaneously? In other words—if I lose here, couldn’t another version of me simply win in a different world? Or if I win, wouldn’t it be meaningless if another me loses somewhere else?”
The question about whether soul annihilation is real falls into the same category. A tournament format makes no sense otherwise.
“On that point, I can give you a clear answer. There is zero element of luck regarding your opponents.”
“How is that possible?”
“It’s simple. You, Mr. Biin, personally chose your first opponent. The same goes for Oswald, your actual first opponent.”
“???”
I was stunned. What the hell is she talking about? I chose?
“To be more precise… In your memory, it probably feels like you started playing the game, I appeared, and you immediately jumped into some random world. In reality, an enormous amount of time and information was provided to you during that interval.”
“An enormous amount of time…?”
“Yes. Specifically, you were given information on every possible starting terrain, complete data on all one billion potential opponents, and full details on your first matched opponent. The game began only after you had been granted infinite time and infinite memory to process everything.”
“?!”
What the actual fuck?
So I had spent an eternity meticulously analyzing every possible opponent and selecting my battlefield before the match even started?
“It costs far less than running every conceivable combination of games.”
“Wait. Logically, there’s no way I could have reviewed information on a billion players. And I doubt any player actually examined all one billion before entering combat.”
“Correct. So we applied a very simple balancing method.”
“……?”
“The less information you obtained and the fewer conditions you set, the higher your starting divine power became. In other words, your base divine power at Faith 0.”
Ah…!
“The same principle applied to terrain balance. Some starting terrains were clearly better than others, correct? Each terrain granted a different amount of base divine power to its god. The Nectar Well was one of the more generous options.”
“Then the choice I made during that time I can’t remember was…”
“‘Anything is fine.’ Across every single pre-game element a player could designate, you answered ‘I don’t care.’”
That tracks. With tens of thousands of hours of experience, I was trained to play sloppily yet effectively in any situation.
“Players without your gaming background—scholars, politicians, generals, and the like—tended to select options that aligned with their race, culture, or common sense. Others sacrificed some of their starting divine power to secure advantages, such as meeting cooperative players early or designating specific opponents.
“The vast majority played that way. For example, Ogolraeot specified that he would only accept a terrain where he could utilize his ranch management expertise. That’s why he began on a grassland with bison.”
I see… So it wasn’t completely random.
I couldn’t remember it, but there had been a pre-selection phase.
Looking at it that way, it made sense that my starting divine power and the changes I caused in my world seemed unusually high compared to other players.
I really did have a lot of divine power even at Faith 0.
“Therefore, even a single-elimination tournament is fair. Of course, luck cannot be completely eliminated. However, players could choose how much or how little they would be affected by it. That alone reduces the role of luck far below what exists in reality.”
“What about opponents after the first match?”
“Those are determined automatically by a program within the game. Matching occurs only between similar terrains.
“As a side note, if players on the community coordinate to face each other and the matchups become heavily skewed, some player might find that no similar terrains remain at all, correct?”
“Right.”
“The priority for those ‘unfortunate players with no matches left’ is also determined by initial divine power.”
“What if everything is identical…? For example, I chose ‘anything is fine.’ There could be other players who gave the exact same answer.”
“Base divine power differs according to starting terrain. Since no two players are perfectly identical, the game system contains no random number generation. If there is any randomness, it is the players’ own choices. Even disasters that appear to be random are actually fixed values determined by the game’s internal systems.”
Understood. The biggest question had been answered.
If a game has too much luck, it becomes a trash game decided by RNG. If it has zero luck, perfect solutions emerge. But a structure where players can choose between luck and fixed stats is controllable. In the end, it all comes down to choice—and that itself becomes a measure of the player’s skill.
They deleted the memory of those choices to remove variables. The organizers’ capabilities really are absurd…
“Do you have more questions?”
“If I asked about the organizers’ true purpose or what kind of beings you originally were, would you answer?”
“As I have said repeatedly, our true purpose is simply to discover the optimal strategy. The latter question, however, I can answer easily at this point.”
Huh? Really? That’s unexpected.
“The organizers are extraterrestrial beings who have built an inter-dimensional civilization.”
Somehow… that answer felt a little anticlimactic.
“On the Kardashev scale, would that be a Type 5 or higher civilization capable of harnessing unimaginable energy?”
“Yes, that’s correct. I cannot specify the exact level. They stand below True Immortal Mihun’s goal of becoming a divine immortal, but above Mihun himself.”
It really does feel anticlimactic. Or rather, there are still far too many suspicious points…
“Hehe… The truth is usually anticlimactic. Honestly, if we who are hosting this game aren’t an incredibly advanced alien civilization or gods with supernatural powers, what else could we possibly be?
“If we had called ourselves gods, would that have felt any less disappointing? What difference would it make if we said we were demons instead of gods? Or immortals? In the end, the only possibilities are aliens or gods, aren’t there?”
“That’s true. In the Cthulhu Mythos, they’re basically the same thing anyway.”
“Exactly. Any further questions?”
I thought for a moment.
“No… I don’t. Or rather, even if I asked, the answer would be meaningless.”
Things like whether they actually give proper rewards for winning or dropping out. No matter what they say, there’s no way to verify it.
The same went for soul annihilation. The same went for questions about the Angel… Since I would only receive the official response, that was enough.
“Then the organizers have questions for you. The following questions are asked of every player.”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
The Angel began asking in a businesslike tone, as if reading from a list.
First Question: What is your goal as a player?
“Winning.”
“That is not what I meant. Whether you win or drop out, what do you wish to do with the points you obtain? Winning simply converts points into a wish, after all.”
If that’s how you’re asking, then—
“At first, suicide. Or the destruction of all intelligent life. Proving the meaninglessness of civilization.”
“Has that changed now?”
“Yes.”
“Is this due to the influence of Jumito, the entity you met within the game?”
“…It’s not only that. I’m thinking about what comes ‘after’ what I mentioned earlier.”
The Angel asked again in the tone of a psychological counselor.
“Does the same apply to death? Are you thinking about what comes after?”
“No. Death is the end. But I want to make my death the conclusion of my life, not an interruption.”
“You could still suffer soul annihilation midway, you know?”
“That doesn’t matter at all…”
The Angel took one step closer.
“Because you have no lingering attachments even if you die?”
“……”
Well. If this had been right before the game started, I would have said yes…
But my feelings then and now are probably the same. The only difference is whether they’ve been properly organized.
“No. I have plenty of lingering attachments.”
“Is that so? Then why?”
“I want my life to be evaluated.”
“Pardon?”
The previously disorganized logic suddenly fell into place. An argument I hadn’t even consciously considered came spilling out on its own.
“The winner is the best player. Anything that falls short of that is, by definition, a ‘failed strategy.’”
“That is correct. Though the degree may differ.”
“Then the stage at which someone is eliminated should indicate the level of their strategy. Dropping out midway means you never learn how far you could have gone, right? I want to measure how correct I was by exactly where I fall.”
The Angel simply smiled at my words. It was an organizer’s smile—containing zero information.
“Very well. Then here is the second question.”
“Yeah…”
“Do you have any complaints about the game? Regarding the overall rules or interactions between players, for example.”
“Complaints, huh… The player-to-player interactions feel too strong. To be blunt, the game is structured so that sociable people who are good at political maneuvering have an absolute advantage, doesn’t it?”
“Hehe. Mr. Biin, in real life, people who are sociable and good at political maneuvering always have an absolute advantage.”
When she put it that way, I had nothing to say.
“Understood. Then this is the final question from the organizers. It concerns soul annihilation. You have consistently achieved victory through an aggressive strategy of completely eradicating every opponent you have faced.
“Whether that even qualifies as a strategy is still somewhat doubtful, but… do you feel no guilt over annihilating your opponents’ souls? What did you feel after your first soul annihilation?”
“To be honest, I feel neither guilt nor any particular emotion… There are several reasons.
“First, I already resolved to annihilate every opponent’s soul the moment I entered the game. I didn’t even know surrender was an option.
“Second—and this may sound like something a cheap villain would say—eating and being eaten is simply how nature works. I don’t want to attach any special feelings to such an obvious principle.
“Third, I still genuinely doubt whether the opponents’ souls are actually being annihilated. That’s my current state.”
At that, the Angel smiled brightly and wrapped up the conversation.
“Thank you for cooperating with the interview. There may be another one someday. I hope we meet again.”
“Sure.”
“And this is a personal question from me.”
The Angel smiled with perfect naturalness.
“Mr. Biin. Are you enjoying the game?”
I was so flustered I didn’t know how to answer.
“If I connect it to the previous questions, it sounds like you’re asking whether annihilating souls is fun…”
“That is not what I meant.”
“Well. As I said, I feel neither pleasure nor guilt from the soul annihilation itself. If you’re asking whether the game is fun, then…”
I carefully chose my words.
“It is fun.”
The Angel gave a faint, gentle smile.
“Thank you for answering a difficult question. Then, Mr. Biin, I will return you to normal time.”